


Birdy

by Pandean



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: BAMF Sansa Stark, Because Sansa is always overlooked and ignored by her family, Catelyn Stark Bashing, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Dark Crack, Emotional Hurt, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, I Don't Even Know, I just hate how they all treat Sansa, I really don't hate the Starks, If You Squint - Freeform, Ned Stark Bashing, Ned Stark fucked up, Ned Stark's A+ Parenting, Ned Stark's Favoritism, Neglect, Shitty Dad Ned, Something I wrote out of vindictive anger, Stark bashing, The Stark's A+ family skills, Wish Fulfillment, even when clearly in the right or not doing anything wrong or simply being a teenager
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 11:27:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20947580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandean/pseuds/Pandean
Summary: For five years the Stark family has seen neither hide nor hair of Sansa Stark. All that changes one Thanksgiving afternoon.





	Birdy

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this is a pretty shitty fic just by writing standards and I know it may piss some people off but I've always been incredibly angry how Sansa Stark is treated by her family. She's always less valuable, no one cares about her opinions, her dad didn't realize she hadn't played with dolls for FIVE YEARS and clearly favored her sister, even Catelyn kind of just let her be and paid more attention to Arya and the boys. Like seriously, Ned Stark was a shitty father to her and Catelyn was a shitty mother and her siblings were shitty siblings and in my rage at the injustice of it all I wrote this piece of shit of a fic.
> 
> Enjoy?

The Stark house had never been truly full in five years. Even on today, where nearly everyone had an almost sacred duty to go to the large house for Thanksgiving dinner, there was just one part of the equation missing.

Sure, each of the Stark children were adults now—or at least reaching the age of one—the youngest, Rickon was fifteen and the eldest, Robb, had celebrated his twenty fifth birthday only a month ago. That wasn’t even including Jon and Theon, who both were twenty seven, and only not included into the group of ‘Stark children’ because technically the legal adoption paperwork was still being processed.

But this was Thanksgiving and so almost every Stark, in name or not, was here. Rickon and Bran, along with Robb’s fiancée Jeyne, Arya’s boyfriend Gendry, and Rickon’s girlfriend Shireen, were helping Catelyn Stark prepare the feast of feasts. Arya, Robb, Theon, Jon, Ygritte, and Ned sat in the living room watching the game of football on TV. It was a rule in the Stark house that if you didn’t help cook Thanksgiving dinner, you helped clean up everything afterward, and the last time Arya, Robb, and Jon had tried their hand in the kitchen the fire department was rushed over and the smoke stained the walls until they were finally repainted.

Arya played on her phone, not particularly engrossed in the game on TV. Hot Pie was coming over later for dessert and they were texting back and forth to make sure they had the correct number of, well, pies. The Starks could eat enough for a small army come holidays and Hot Pie relished the challenge.

_Holy shit, Arry_

Arya frowned.

_Arry: What? Are you okay? _

_Pie Boi: Dude turn on Varys Spyder Show right now_

_Arry: the fuck would I want to look at that trash show for???_

_Pie Boi: DO IT!!!!_

Arya rolled her eyes. “Hey Jon, can you turn on the Varys Spyder Show? Hot Pie is freaking out about something on it.”

“Well if it’s Hot Pie freaking out,” Theon said slyly, “It must be very important.”

“Okay so he’s a little neurotic,” Arya defended her, yes, definitely a little neurotic, friend. “Still just turn it on.”

“Okay, okay, don’t bite me.” Theon threw the remote control to Jon, the only one in the group who probably knew what channel the Varys Spyder Show was actually on in the first place. He normally claimed it was just because it was always playing at his work but Arya’d seen the bar he ran and was pretty sure that wasn’t the case. Ygritte confirmed in secret it was were he got his hair types.

Which, well, Jon did have good hair.

The channel flickered on. It only took two seconds for the brood of Starks and sort-of Starks and very-soon-to-be Starks to stare, open mouthed at the TV.

Because, after all, the group wasn’t complete. They hadn’t been complete in five years.

Five years ago Sansa Stark had left the family with no letters, no goodbyes, and no way to contact her.

But there she was now. Sitting on national TV.

“Holy fuck,” Robb said. “Mom! Mom! Get in here! It’s Sansa! She’s on TV!”

Catelyn Stark poked her head inside the living room and nearly collapsed at the sight of her daughter on the screen. She’d grown taller, she had to be taller than Ned now, and her hair – her beautiful hair was shaved on one side – piercings marked her ears and oh god was that an _eyebrow_ ring? But she wasn’t skinny, at least, didn’t look sickly, like someone lost in life. It was more than Catelyn could’ve hoped for, given what she knew of her daughter. The world would’ve swallowed her up, she knew, but apparently not.

A quiet murmur began in the living room as one by one everyone who’d been in the kitchen trickled in, sitting on the floor or the arms of couches, any place they could reach, really.

“What is she doing on the Varys Spyder Show?” Arya finally asked, gobsmacked.

“Shhh!” Rickon hissed as he turned the volume up to a near deafening level.

_Varys looked professional, yet chic, in some designer outfit that no one, much less anyone in the living room knew the name of. He sat with his legs crossed, leaning over with one hand under his chin. “So, Sansa – do you prefer to go by Sansa or your stage name in interviews – can you tell us a little bit about the EP you’re releasing. I’ve heard so many good things and the pre-orders already have it soaring to the top.”_

EP? Stage name? What in the ever-living hell? “When did Sansa release an EP?” Jon asked, frowning. If anyone in the family knew music, it was him.

“Beats the fuck out of me,” Ygritte shrugged. “How did you not know your own sister has music coming out?”

“Shhhhh!” This time the force of Ned, Catelyn, Arya, Robb, Rickon, Bran, Theon, Jeyne, Shireen, and Gendry’s combined _shhhhh _shaked the whole house.

Jon put up his hands in an apology and was silent once more.

_“Sansa is fine,” said the Sansa on TV. “But you’re also welcome to use my stage name since it’s what my music’s under.” _

_ “Alright then,” Varys said. “Can you tell us a little about it – your stage name and eponymously named EP? What made you think of it? What was the inspiration for Birdy?”_

Birdy. Arya chewed on the inside of her cheek. Wasn’t that something she used to call Sansa when they were younger?

_Sansa smiled. “Well, you have to understand I grew up in a big family. I have six siblings and my parents, though we haven’t been near each other in years. I guess I was just always the odd one out, y’know? They were all the wolves of Winterfell and wanted to go shooting and hunting, camping all the time, doing martial arts and sword training. Fierce stuff. But that’s never been for me. I liked singing and fairytales and epic ballads – I still do – and music that didn’t have people screaming in it. The joke was that I was some little bird that managed to get lost in the wolf pack.” _Sansa smiled again and this time it Arya noticed it was a rather sad smile.

_“It bothered me a lot at first. No one really had any time for me or the things I wanted to do. Everyone was so busy with everyone else. So, I left home at eighteen and went to King’s Landing. When Jaime and Cersei Lannister saw me busking on the street they told me from the moment they heard me that I was going places. I’m so blessed to be represented by Red Lion Entertainment.”_

At the name _Lannister_, Ned Stark huffed. He tried his hardest to be a fair man and not judge others for their mishaps or misjudgments, truly he tried. But the Lannisters gave him a bad taste in his mouth that had lingered ever since Jaime Lannister had been acquitted of the murder of Aerys Targaryen. Even though Ned poured his heart out to represent the widow of his dead client in the legal struggle, in the end, the death was ruled an accident. Ned wasn’t stupid though, he knew Tywin Lannister had enough money to pay off whoever he needed to to get his son free. But of course his word alone couldn’t prove that the lion did so. And so a murderer or as good as one walked free.

Walked free and apparently represented his daughter as a talent agent.

His twin sister was no better. A whore who’d cheated on his best friend, Robert, and then took him for everything he had at divorce court. As far as he knew, Robert barely ever saw his twins Myrcella and Tommen, and while he’d always been a drinker, it’d had grown even worse afterward. With his children stolen and disgraced by his wife, he ended up in the hospital from alcohol poisioning.

_“So, we were trying to brainstorm a stage name and I asked Cersei why she chose LION-ess as her stage name. She told me it was so people would never forget who she was and I thought, well, that fit with the theme of my EP which was already going to at least have some reference to birds in the title. I just thought, okay, well people have always called me a birdy anyway. Why not reclaim it and be proud of it?”_

Arya’s phone was frantically beeping with messages but she barely spared a glance for it. Every eye in the house was on her sister on TV.

_“And if I was told right you’re going to play that single for us, today?” Varys asked and Sansa smiled once more, a real one this time, and nodded. _

Varys motioned Sansa to the grand piano near the back of the room. Until he pointed it out, Arya hadn’t actually noticed it was there. But it was large and shiny and probably more expensive than her college tuition and Sansa sat herself down on it like a trained professional. Despite, as far as Arya knowing, never having had music lessons.

She pressed the keys into a soft and mournful melody that slowly began to rise in speed. The keys turned from mournful and melancholy to something almost shrill and bitter, if music could be bitter, and the tempo racked up as minor key upon minor key was played in quick succession.

By the time Sansa started singing the tune had turned from that slow melancholy, to that bitterness, to a type of pent up rage that sped across the keyboard. And with it, came Sansa’s voice, twisted in anger as she sang.

_“Well have you heard the tale dear/of the spider and the fly_

_I tell you it’s quite catching/but you can’t imagine why_

_don’t you think you’re sad bird/don’t you think you’re strange_

_all those pretty fairy tales/are dancing in your brain_

_has not anyone told you/that those fairy tales are true_

_just take a drink swallow this bottle/and I’ll tell you what to do”_

The frantic words poured from her mouth as she sang to the rage of the piano keys until like a wave the lyrics and music crashed over to something calmer, slower, yet equally as angry. Sansa’s voice took on a mocking edge. The type of cruel that one would hear in the hallways of a school or in the fields during recess where teens taunted others until they broke down and snapped.

_“are you scared bird_

_are you meek bird_

_do you know not how to speak bird_

_are the words trapped on your beak bird_

_are you so pitifully weak bird”_

The tempo picked up once again as Sansa launched into the second verse, singing with the same tone as she had the first.

_“they told me I should teach you/so I filled your mouth with worms_

_I taught you how to bend and break/I taught you how to learn_

_And no one really cared bird/they just said you’re like the rest_

_So come on giving up flying/just go sailing to your nest”_

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, the one second of pure silence even more deafening than the thundering piano. She took a deep breath before that slow, mournful tune played once again.

_“You’re not like the others bird_

_You’re not like your mother_

_You’re not like your father bird_

_Your sister and your brothers_

_And that’s why you live here in the garden that we’ve grown_

_They have cried out when you stuttered _

_‘please just find another home’”_

Her hands flew across the piano and the sound reminded Arya strangely of ravens circling their prey, though it was much sweeter than that sound ever could be. The music of the piano was dark and predatory and the keys smashed down with a force so strong for a moment Arya was certain they’d break.

_“Are you small bird_

_Do you bawl bird_

_Are you just not strong at all bird_

_Little sweet bird_

_Fucking neat bird_

_Care to stand on your two feet bird_

_What a young bird_

_Are you dumb bird_

_Please just go and hop along bird_

_You’ve been here for far too long bird_

_Are you weak bird_

_Think you’re sleek bird_

_Do you have a thought to think bird_

_Disappear bird_

_Do you heard bird…_

_Oh you’re scared bird_

_Oh you’re weak bird_

_Where’s that music from your beak bird_

_I am not your little song bird_

_I am not your sing along bird_

_I will not just carry on bird_

_I’m a motherfucking strong bird_

_”_

Her voice got soft then, soft like the air around here was ice and just her very breath would break it. Soft and quiet and slightly pained. Strong as silk, perhaps, if not steel itself. Deep and mournful. A sound from the pit of the stomach, from the belly, and the heart.

_“Oh step into my parlor/said the spider to the fly_

_I know it is quite drabby/ but I can’t imagine why_

_So you think I’m sad my dear/ so you think I’m strange_

_Have a thousand little stories/just dancing in my brain_

_Judge me _

_Compare me to wolves_

_Say something’s wrong with me_

_C’mon I dare you too_

_I don’t think you’ve noticed_

_The snow has made you blind_

_The sea has dulled your ears_

_And the city dulled your mind_

_So let me _

_Spell it out for you_

_My wings they are things_

_Magnificent too_

_I’ll fly up to the sun_

_And my wings they will go on_

_Cos though it may surprise you_

_My wings they have talons_

_They’re not made of glue”._

For the first time in twenty-three years, on the busiest and most hectic of days, Sansa Stark, miles away from her family, was finally heard by them.

But it was far too late.


End file.
